Acquired immunodeficiency syndrom (AIDS) is quite a new disease to humans and its epidemics are spreading on a worldwide scale in these years and causing tremendous impacts on the human society. A WHO report released March of 1987 reckoned that there are about one-hundred-thousand AIDS patients in the world and five- to ten-million carriers.
AIDS is a fatal disease caused by infection with human immunodeficienty virus (HIV), a retrovirus, a cardinal sign of which is serious immunosuppression complicated by opportunistic infections and malignant tumors such as Kaposi's sarcoma.
Involved in such opportunistic infections is a broad range of pathogenic microorganisms such as Pneumocystis carinii, protozoa, fungi, viruses, bacteria and so on, and as associated malignant tumors, Kaposi's sarcoma, non-Hodgikin's lymphoma, primary lymphoma, etc. are known.
The AIDS virus (HIV) is unusually liable to undergo mutation and its infection target cells are T-lymphocytes (helper T-cells) which play a leading role in mechanism of preventing infection. Since HIV belongs to a retrovirus, its gene is incorporated in the host cell gene. These multi-farious characteristics of HIV are intimately associated with the difficulties encountered in the treatment of this syndrome.
Researches directed to the treatment of AIDS are in progress on a worldwide scale. The antiviral agent, azidothymidine (AZT), for instance, has been clinically demonstrated to increase the life span of AIDS patients. However, its serious side effects such as bone marrow depression, anemia and neurologic disorders such as headache and convulsion have been posing problems in its clinical application. Aside from such therapy, various immunopotentiator therapies, vaccine therapies, and therapeutic modalities aimed at accompanying opportunistic infections and malignant tumors have also been attempted but none has proved to be a successful radial therapy of AIDS.